


Consumption

by buttsbeyondbutts



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Flashback, Gore, Horror, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hyrda, M/M, Visceral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 06:12:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5036926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttsbeyondbutts/pseuds/buttsbeyondbutts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky thought he knew hunger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Consumption

**Author's Note:**

> Read the notes.   
> Huge Gore trigger warning. Super gross. Don't read if squeamish

They were erasing him. Literally, Bucky grew smaller every day. He could see bones through the flesh of his remaining hand, ugly, poking through his sallow skin.

Bucky thought he'd known hunger before. He'd worked eight hour shifts with little more than a crust of bread, saving the largest pieces for Steve. Now hunger consumed him. He couldn't think, couldn't sleep for the cramps and the pain.

The worst part though was that he couldn't do anything about it. When he begged, and Bucky begged so much, they beat him and left him to starve in the cold and dark. They beat him whenever he spoke, whenever he begged or threatened or promised. They beat him when he fled to the back of the cell to avoid another beating, when  he whispered Steve's name in his sleep. Only silent obedience has earned him anything but pain.

He lies face down in his cell and waits for orders.

Three days had passed since Bucky stopped begging, since he last gave voice to Steve's name mouthed on his lips.

He wasn't giving up. He was still Bucky. They hadn't broken him. He was just so hungry.

Steve would come for him. Bucky had no doubt on that. Steve got himself souped up and flew across the atlantic to save Bucky once.

He just needed to live long enough for Steve to get there.

* * *

"Don't do anything stupid," he warned Steve, his nose in his lover's soft blond hair.

"How can I?" Steve asked, his voice muffled by Bucky's shirt. "You're taking all the stupid with you."

Bucky kissed him. They were alone in their apartment, the only place they could kiss. Steve's fingers curled in his shirt, pulling him closer. Bucky could feel him shaking against him, that quiet desperation that Steve could never quite voice. Bucky kissed him slow, savoring the taste. Steve tasted of salt, like cured bacon. Bucky spent weeks trying to recreate that taste, ever since he got his draft papers. He never got it right. There was nothing like kissing Steve except for kissing Steve.

"I got something for you," Steve said, pulling back just a little, so his breath kissed on Bucky's lips.

"You didn't need to- what is it?" Bucky watched him dash across the little room and grab something from under the beds.

"Belonged to my dad," Steve said, already guessing Bucky's gripe about money. "You don't gotta- i just figured, guys talk so maybe this'd-"

"Steve," Bucky laughed without meaning to. His boy blushed wildly, like a sudden fever overtook his entire face. "What is it?"

Steve held out a shaking fist and opened it, palm up. A plain gold ring sat on his milk white flesh. Bucky stopped laughing. He couldn't quite make his mouth close, staring at it.

He was quiet too long. "You don't gotta wear-" Steve said hastily. "I know you- we ain't exactly- I don't even know if it'd fit, just-" he closed his fingers around the ring and pulled it back, mumbling something. Bucky caught his wrist just before it reached his pocket.

"Give it," he snapped and fuck he sounded pissed. Steve's blue eyes exploded as his fingers unclenched. Bucky took the ring and turned it over in his fingers. He slipped it over his finger, marveling over its weight. "It fits," he said, blinking softly.

"You like it?" Steve said, barely breathing.

"Yeah," Bucky smiled, glancing between the ring and his mate. "Yeah, I love it."

Steve kissed him again, fierce this time, slamming him back against the door. "Steve," Bucky gasped involuntarily, unable to hold back his laughter as Steve wrapped his legs around his waist.

"Bucky," Steve's voice is thick and heady. "Bucky, Bucky, Bucky!"

"Yeah, Stevie, I'm yours," Bucky said, threading his fingers through Steve's hair. "Didn't have to get me a ring for it."

"I know guys talk," Steve said, frowning, "Y'get up to all kinds of shit in a war, without mas or sisters or girlfriends around. I know about the whore houses-"

"Steve, I'm not gonna-"

"I know you wouldn't but..." Steve hesitated, biting his lip, "now you got an excuse, if they give you shit about it. You got somebody waitin' for you."

"Yeah," the thought made something warm curl up around his heart, protecting it. "But, Steve, it's your dad's ring."

Steve didn't have much of anything from his parents, save the rings, the old family bible with the birth and marriage dates inside and a few handkerchiefs from Sarah Rogers' old dresses. Anything of value was long since pawned for rent and food and medicine but Steve held onto his parents's rings. Or he had anyway.

He shrugged in Bucky's arms, and smiled weakly. "Call it a loan? You'll give it back when you come home."

"Steve-"

"You bring back my Dad's ring, Barnes," Steve ordered, joking and deathly serious, "You're responsible for it, understand. Don't go passing it off to someone else."

"I won't," Bucky promised. "I'll bring it back, Steve."

"You better," Steve said, "I'll track you down, Buck."

Bucky didn't say anything, just kissed him again. Steve nuzzled closer against him and pulled Bucky's hand up to stare at the ring in wonder.

* * *

The commandant- or whoever he was- came back in a few hours. Bucky kept his forehead placed firmly on the cold cement. "Look up," he commanded in a thick accent, somewhere between Russian and german. Bucky obeyed, dizzy at the sudden movement. The commandant was small with a thin black mustache and no other hair on his body. "You are starving to death, soldier." He said in a flat tone. "Your improved biology has allowed you to survive sixteen days without water, nearly two months with nothing to eat,"

 _Two months? Two months at least. How long have I been here? Where the hell is Steve?_ Bucky kept his mouth shut.

"Rest assured you are starving," the commandant continued, "Doctor Zola's serum was... Primitive. Untested. It does not guarantee you longevity, or even safety. The pain you feel is your body consuming your internal organs. You are eating yourself, soldier."

Bucky swallowed, his mouth bone dry. The commandant shouted in German that he thought was an order to bring something. A thump hit the cement floor and Bucky's eyes flickered to the object before he could think of the consequences. The thing was a sick, pale white white black and green splotches, like rotting chicken that hadn't been cooked all the way through. There were... Hairs, thick black hair on the parts that hadn't burned.

Bucky's empty stomach turned in on itself. Bile rose to the top of his mouth and he heaved. A human arm- his left arm- lay rotting in front of him. He couldn't look away, couldn't stop shaking. His pinky and thumb were missing but a thick golden ring still rested on the finger. The small man laughed. "You did not think we would let you starve, Sergeant Barnes? You did not think to escape so easy?"

"No," the word left without Bucky's permission. Once it was gone, he couldn't stop not even when the commandant's thick black cane smashed down on his face. He scrambled back to the edge of the cell. "Nononono!"

"Silence!" He hit him again, repeating the command again and again in German, English, Russian- languages Bucky couldn't place but he could understand. He could understand but he couldn't stop. He shielded himself as best he could with his remaining arm from the horror in front of him.

"No, no, please! Take it away! God, please, take it away, you sick fucks!" Steve's name slipped out too, with the litany of prayer and pleas. "Steve, please! Help me! Get me out of here!"

"He will not help you, soldier!" His captor shouted, almost giddy. "I am your only friend in the world. I am the only one who will help you, soldier."

"No," Bucky sobbed like a child, unable to stop himself. "No, Steve. Please, please make it stop. Take it away! Take that thing away!"

They hit him again and again until Bucky couldn't scream any more. He fell onto the concrete floor and wished he'd die before he woke up again.

* * *

When he woke up, his severed arm still lay where they'd dropped it. Bucky cringed and closed his eyes again, holding back the vomit. A tinny voice came on over a loudspeaker.

"You will receive no other sustenance until you consume what you have been given. A soldier must have gratitude."

Bucky groaned and curled tighter around himself. He waited for a moment and then crawled over to the rotting flesh. Steve's ring still rested on his finger. Why didn't they take it?

 _You bring back my Dad's ring_. Steve said. _I'll hunt you down._

Bucky reached forward to wrap shaking fingers around the cold metal. He pulled and heard a snap. His finger came off with the ring!

Bucky did barf then. Thin white vomit, stomach acid since there wasn't any food to expel. It hurt like a bitch and he felt dizzy. Squeezing his eyes shut, he pushed his finger loose from the ring and let it fall to the floor. Bucky pushed himself back to the far end of the cell, away from the monstrous thing that used to be his arm. He stared down at the ring, cupped jealously in the palm that still belonged to him. It was the brightest thing he'd ever seen but still, filthy. Some of his skin had stuck to the metal, like a tongue on a flagpole.

 _Can't give it back like this,_ Bucky thought, _Steve's coming soon. Gotta make it clean._

He slipped a finger into his mouth, gathering what spit he could. He held the ring carefully between thumb and index and cleaned as best he could with the middle. Bits of skin and caked on blood came off. Bucky stuck his finger back in his mouth before he realized what he was doing and pulled it out again, horrified.

_You are eating yourself, Soldier._

_Steve is coming._ Bucky told himself, trying to drown out the commandant's voice. _Gotta stay alive until Steve comes._

_He will not help you._

Bucky stuck the ring inside his mouth and cleaned it with his tongue. _Steve is coming. I just have to stay alive until he comes. I gotta give him his ring._

When he finished cleaning it, Buck took the ring out and slipped it over his thin finger. It shook when his hand shook and slipped around a bit but it looked right.

Bucky ate his arm. He threw up a lot of it and it took him days. He hoped it took at least a day to get up the nerve but he couldn't keep track of the time too well in the dimly lit cell. Once he made up his mind that he could do it, the hunger overtook the horror. The soldier ate.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please give positive reviews if you can. It's been a rough month.


End file.
